Wordless Wednesday: Boone Studies His Birds

Salt Marsh Morning

 [Great Egret with just-captured juvenile Seaside Sparrow, Tuckerton NJ Saturday.]

Getting up at oh-dark-thirty to do a marsh bird survey has its benefits. There's a world of difference between a salt marsh at 5:30 a.m. and the same marsh at 9:00 a.m. This was my second run through of my portion of the SHARP survey at Tuckerton, along Great Bay Boulevard, and the numbers from my 10 survey points speak volumes: 45 Clapper Rails, 65 Seaside Sparrows, and a very strong 22 Saltmarsh Sparrows. Understand, we only need to detect (i.e. hear) birds to count them, but it was astonishing how easy a time I was having seeing these birds. The high tide might have had something to do with it, but I think it was mainly the height of breeding season expressing itself, especially for the strange, promiscuous, late-breeding Saltmarsh Sparrows, sometimes tricky to see but this day chasing each other around, sometimes in groups, and singing their weak little song.

The craziest thing, as you might have discerned from the picture above, was the Great Egret with a bird in its bill, a bird that turned out to be a just captured, still struggling juvenile Seaside Sparrow. Struggle was hopeless - I've once before seen an egret devour a female Red-winged Blackbird, to the horror of the group I was leading. Maybe National Audubon should have chosen a different symbol. . .

[A few dips in the water to smooth the swallowing, and down it goes.]

When I first saw the sparrow through the camera lens, I thought it might be a Saltmarsh Sparrow, but the buff wasn't orange or extensive enough, and it had the dark lore and yellow supraloral of a Seaside. Young Seaside Sparrows can be pretty buffy, and are pale with fine streaking below. I should mention that the new Crossley Guide does a pretty good job on this i.d., particularly the text.

Besides the breeding birds, Tuckerton had one each of Black-bellied Plover, Greater Yellowlegs, and Least Sandpiper, all in winter plumage and none of which likely made it to the breeding grounds this year, maybe not even north of Tuckerton. Likely one-year olds. A Willow Flycatcher sang at the end of Great Bay Boulevard.

[The concerned apparent parent called and worried nearby. Look how big a Seaside Sparrow's bill is.]

[One of the 22 Saltmarsh Sparrows I recorded. I saw most of these; their weak songs are difficult to detect at distance.]

[Clapper Rail swimming a high tide channel along Great Bay Boulevard.]

[Luckily, I didn't hit this juvenile Chuck-wills-widow as I drove to my survey - it was on Lily Lake Road near Forsythe NWR, where they are common. I sorely wished I had had time to wait around for a parent to come feed it. Chuck's, besides being much bigger than Whip-poor-wills, are quite warm-toned to the Whip's gray. Click to enlarge.]

Last Tango in Barrow

[This Peregrine Falcon swept into Point Barrow with his mate and snatched a Semipalmated Sandpiper on our last morning in Alaska. They disappeared low over the northern horizon, meaning pretty much headed for the north pole - with the unfed female in hot pursuit of a Black Guillemot!]

Well, we're back. There's night here, most unusual. And Laughing Gulls, haven't seen one of them in like three weeks. Kind of like dark, which seems weird.

You need to go to Barrow once in your life, at least. Trust me.

At some point I'll put a link to our actual itinerary from the Alaska trip here - it will be on the NJA website soon.

 [Polar Bear vigil.]

[Mixed pair of Parasitic Jaegers, an "intermediate" and light morph, nestled on the wet tundra at Barrow.]

Midnight in Alaska

 [Snowy Owl nest on a tundra hummock, Arctic Ocean in the distant background. She incubates, and waits. He hunts, and defends.]

We accidentally-on purpose ran into Denver Holt today, while we were (what and where else) scoping a Snowy Owl on her nest, with mate nearby attending. Denver gave us an overview of Snowy Owls in the Arctic: how lemmings drive the train, how pairs with hyper-aggressive males seem to be more successful at raising large broods.

[This apparent female Baird's Sandpiper waits while her mate rockets high and far in display flight.]

[Spectacled Eider and his mate. Check out this image of wintering Spectacled Eiders - cold seems not to be an issue for these birds, but climate change could be. Spectacled eiders winter in polynyas in the Bering Sea.]

[Alaskan cultural moment, Barrow today.]

[Presumed adult female Glaucous Gull quarrels with presumed immature male (larger, right) over Bowhead Whale blubber discarded after a successful Inupiat hunt, Point Barrow this evening. We'll be back to check the spoils again tomorrow - perhaps a fancier gull will show up. Or a Polar Bear.]

[Sun not-set over Barrow right now, as seen out my hotel room window at 11:46 p.m., looking north-northwest.]

Tomorrow's our last day here, so I had to stay up for the midnight sun. Can't sleep anyway - My body has always wanted to go to sleep within an hour of sundown and wake up a little before sun-up, long winter nights or short summer ones. Or no nighters here, apparently. Luckily Mark and I scored a free upgrade to first class for our flight from Fairbanks to Minneapolis on Sunday - sleepy time then, hopefully, with Arctic dreams, as Barry Lopez so aptly titled his book.

We're Not in Kansas Anymore

 [Snow Buntings nest all around town in Barrow - the House Finches of the north, with a voice not dissimilar.]

This may be far enough, this place called Barrow. Which is a good thing, because it's about as far as you can go.

I'm envious of the birds here. They are at the peak of excitement now, the height of their lives in this month of June, displaying, singing, chasing, breeding under the midnight sun (82 days of no sunset). Then they mellow and migrate away, like people getting old. But they get to do it again next year, and the next while we humans mellow, age, maybe (I hope not) even languish, and never can go back to our Arctic summer.

We'll ignore the 65 days of no sunrise here. It's a dry town. Good thing.

 [Distant Steller's Eider, the last digit on the lifer odometer rolls over yet again. We found multiple Spectacled Eiders as well.]

Our arrival day was rain, cold and mud - but still no dark, so I drove around getting the lay of the land, retiring, still in light, around 1:00 a.m. The "dawn" (i.e. when I woke up) broke clear, and stayed that way all day, lighting up hovering singing Dunlin, booming Pectoral Sandpipers, light and dark Parasitic and Pomarine Jaegers, little Semipalmated Sandpipers perched on snowbanks. Three Snowy Owls, all bright white males, hunted while their mates presumably incubate. Pacific and Red-throated Loons wail. It's a good place.

 [Red Phalarope. Lots of these, and Red-necked, too.]

[Long-tailed Ducks.]

[Nope, not Kansas. Whale bones frame the Arctic Ocean.]